The perils of paused power

Great lesson for some folks.

My toilets don't work during a power outage because I am on a well.

Since we have frequent power outages where I live because of trees, I have redundant backups like a generator, stored water, flashlights, camp stove etc.

Some people that this has never happened to, may not even have a flashlight.

ALL of eye toilets I have seen have a flush button. Just because the guy is ignorant, doesn't mean that particular mechanism is flawed.

Electric flush valves have a battery. They are not hooked to grid power.

While there are some that run on AC, many, especially retrofits, have a battery.

Good point. I am not sure now that you mention it.

Those are all the rage in the FL Keys. I am not sure if mandated or just thought of as a GOOD thing.

Around this part of country, the flush button on electric toilets trips a solenoid, it isn't a mechanical lever. Still needs juice to work, as do the damn automagic sink faucets. Some have battery backup, at least when first installed, I think.

What I don't know is how they get power to the damn things. Some, at airports, are flushed into wall, but the retrofit ones in many places have no apparent wired connection. Maybe they are battery-only?

More than half of those I've seen don't. I started paying attention after I read here that they do, but most here don't, and on my drive to Tennessee iirc.

Just because the

But now durign a power failure they are only missing 1.6 gallsons. Before they were missing more.

So the urinals are electric powered. As we know, urine is a conductor.

Does the confluence of these two facts influence how and where you relieve yourself?

Mythbuster debunked that one in one of their early seasons. Solid streams are conductive, but it isn't a solid stream for more than a few inches.

So if I modulate the stream by suitable "squeezes", I should be okay?

Wouldn't it be safer to wear a rubber, er, glove?

Oh wow. Never thought of that.

Would pouring a bucket of water in remove the waste (it does on a manual flush toilet where the handle doesn't work)

I just read that one airline is phasing out flight manuals in paper book format and replacing them with a popular electronic reader gadget, which I shall not name.

What could go wrong?

The battery? A(some) virus? Broken screen? Black(blue) screen of death?

Notice pilots boarding commercial airliners. They will (were) carrying catalog cases. In those cases were Jeppeson manuals containing information a pilot might need to know.

For example, if the destination airport is closed - say, due to weather - and the aircraft has to divert, the flight crew scrambles for their cases and pulls out the volume containing the alternate airport. They need the information about runways, approach control, radio frequencies, and lots of other stuff. For any given airport, the manual may contain several pages of maps, frequencies, Notices to Airmen (NOTAMS), etc.

As for what could go wrong, there are already two things wrong with the current system:

First, the manual set weighs about thirty pounds. For a three-man crew that's almost a 100 pounds of weight and, for approximately 5,000 commercial flights per day, that's a lot of dross (250 tons) and the necessary fuel to move it around.

Second, the manuals have to be updated weekly. If the update doesn't get to the pilot, or he neglects to update his personal binder, we have a significant safety risk. This risk is, of course, somewhat minimized in that there are usually two other copies on the flight deck.

Contrast the above with a three-pound iPad that's updated automatically every day.

Really, so a crew flying say an RJ-200 from say EWR to PIT is carrying charts for California?

Pilots haven't carried cases of charts for the entire country as you noted for a very, very long time.

I guess they don't use the International 28 day standard update interval where you live.

If the update doesn't get to

Absolutely. What if over Scranton the plane is hijacked and ordered to fly to San Juan Capistrano? Or, even more likely, what if, upon landing in Pittsburgh, the flight crew is rescheduled for a hop to San Francisco?

Thank you for the uppity, though immaterial, corrections.

It's been several decades since I flew a plane and am, admittedly, out of date. My salient facts (heavy manuals and the necessity for individual updating) still apply, even though some minor, insignificant, details glommed on by pedantic fuddy-duddies, are no longer in play.